


Prince Consort

by quantumoddity



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Post-Canon, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:40:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22709383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumoddity/pseuds/quantumoddity
Summary: This is a Valentine's present for my wonderful girlfriend who I love very much, hope you like it too!
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Comments: 24
Kudos: 340





	Prince Consort

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alittlebitoftheuniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlebitoftheuniverse/gifts).



Of course it was raining. 

Alex gave Henry a smug smile as they’d sat at the loveseat helpfully provided by their hotel, right by the expansive window so they had a lovely view of the entire city, slate grey and swimming beyond a thick film of rain. One of the things they loved to argue about was whose country had the most ridiculous weather. 

“Don’t,” Henry warned him, seeing the look and giving a retaliatory pinch to his already flushed cheek. Their very late breakfast had turned into something definitely _ other _ than breakfast and it had left them both dishevelled and out of breath. 

“I didn’t say anything…” Alex pouted demurely, leaning up to lick a smudge of chocolate that had used to be part of a pain au chocolat from his cheek. 

“You don’t have to,” Henry went redder, pleasantly scandalised, catching his mouth and promptly wiping the smug look from his face with a deep kiss that tasted of coffee and brown sugar. 

They were being excessive. They both knew it but neither could care. This visit was the first time they’d really been free of work, of law school, of responsibilities that kept them from falling into each other’s arms as often as they’d like. They felt like their younger selves again, nearly wrecking hotel rooms with the abandon of rock stars, lounging around in the afterglow with no clothes on with neray a thought of an upcoming deadline or press conference or budget report. 

Except now they could kiss without fear. 

“So what did you have planned for today?” Alex murmured when they eventually drew apart, only because they had to breathe and because they knew there were more kisses close in their future. 

The reason they were in town was to fawn over their new niece, the week old Princess Margaret, immediately nicknamed Maggie and immediately spoiled by both her uncles. But today were the official portraits for the press and both of them were going to avoid those like the plague. Alex had been ready to construct an overflowing itinerary but Henry had told him not to make any plans. Telling a Claremont-Diaz not to make plans was like telling a shark to swim backwards but he’d somehow managed to refrain. 

Having Henry sprawled on the loveseat with him wearing only a robe that was suggesting more than it was covering, that helped a lot. 

His boyfriend smiled enigmatically, “I just need you dressed and ready for seven. That’s all.” 

Alex frowned, studying his face eagerly for clues, “What kind of ‘dressed’? Fancy? Casual? Smart casual, the most infuriating category of clothing ever?” 

Henry laughed warmly, “Whatever you feel comfortable in, dear. That’s all.”

Alex snorted and settled back against his chest, letting it drop for now. He was confident he’d wheedle the answer out of him sooner or later, there was no rush. He let his eyes close, enjoying the sounds of the city below, a city so different from the one he knew but which had become another kind of home. 

Henry’s hand stayed on his back where it had settled a little while before, rubbing slow circles just below his shoulder blades. And then it began to creep lower, cupping the curve of his hip, his thumb pressing in the divot where it started to become his groin. There was something hungry in that grip.

A smile tugged at the corner of Alex’s mouth, “If we don’t need to be ready until seven, that gives us...what, four hours, right?”

“Something like that,” Henry murmured, a grin in his voice. 

“What should we do with all that time then...”

Henry didn’t deign to answer, just chuckling in that unbearably sexy way of his as the hand gripped tighter, turning Alex onto his back and sinking his mouth against his love’s. 

Fortunately, the rain had stopped by the time they headed down in the elevator of the impossibly expensive and indulgent hotel they’d sprung for, rather than face the awkwardness of staying in Kensington. Not that things hadn’t improved significantly since they’d come out but still, it was easier to feel like this was a romantic vacation when they chose their own bed. And when said bed wasn’t a centuries old antique. 

The city was dark or, at least, as close to darkness as it ever came. The windows were still alive with light, bars and restaurants pools of it as they drove past, the streetlamps streaking it across the car’s tinted windows. Alex leaned his head against the glass, feeling Henry’s hand in his own, and smiled. 

Though he was a little annoyed, down in his chest. He still hadn’t figured out Henry’s plan for their evening. He’d been watching the roads carefully, trying to map out London in his head with bars and restaurants he knew they’d been to before pinned in red. Placed they’d been to when they’d just started, places they’d had dates in since, places they’d spent one of their four anniversaries so far, though only two of them had been spent in London. 

But, as he looked over at Henry’s face, illuminated by the car’s headlamps, he saw it again. The spark in his eyes, the suggestion that they weren’t here just for dinner and drinks. The look of someone who was up to something. 

Alex tried to puzzle at it some more but he was quickly distracted just by looking at Henry. He always looked so content when he was driving, focused but at ease, the hand that wasn’t in Alex’s loose on the wheel. Sure their security detail flanked them from both directions in hire cars identical to their own but they were at least allowed their own privacy. It was a compromised sort of freedom, the kind they’d both grown used to. The kind that seemed to be tipping more in their favour as they grew. 

“Hey,” Henry’s eyes didn’t move from the crowded London street ahead of them but his voice came soft and snagged Alex’s attention immediately, “I love you.”

Alex smiled softly, melting in the way only Henry had ever been able to get him to, “I love you too.” 

Alex caught on about five seconds before they pulled up, with a sharp intake of breath and bolting upright in his seat, “The V&A!”

Henry gave him a grin, “Look at you, sounding just like a local. But yes, that’s exactly where we’re going.” 

“It’ll be closed by now,” Alex was already shifting excitedly, not unlike a puppy, “Are we breaking and entering again?” 

“Hardly,” Henry parked up with infuriating neatness and precision (he was easily the better driver though Alex would never admit it), “I don’t think it counts as that if someone just lets you in the back door. But yes.” 

Alex bounded out, already smiling at the memories of the night he and Henry snuck out of the palace to come here, the night he’d looked at Henry and started to see a future. Even the weather was much the same, the pavements silvered by the earlier downpour, the blanket of clouds above him. He looked up at the grand, towering edifice of the museum and smiled, wishing he could go back in time and tell that confused young man that, three years from now, Henry’s hand would still be in his own and his own mind would be a place he genuinely loved to live. 

He was so wrapped up in his own memories that he didn’t notice the security team pointedly staying within their cars. 

Their footsteps echoed through the empty halls as they walked through the museum, dimly lit and eerie in a good kind of way. It had an excitement to it, like they were getting to see a side of it no one ever did. Like discovering a secret. 

Henry was incorrigible; as soon as he came upon pieces he knew, he began to eagerly recount their stories, like an overzealous textbook given a voice box. Alex couldn’t complain, he was as much of a history nerd as the next person and he did adore seeing Henry so completely absorbed in something he genuinely loved. He could listen to his boyfriend describe how the candlestick they were looking at was a fabulous example of the skill of medieval English goldsmiths all night. 

They spiralled their way inwards, starting with the outer galleries with their Raphael cartoons and folios and moving down through costume displays and historical artefacts. Alex let Henry’s voice carry him somewhere else, to a place where everything was unique and precious and tagged with it’s own slice of history, perfectly preserved behind glass panels for anyone and everyone to come hear their story. 

He was almost sad when they made their way to the main room, the last on their little journey. Though the statue in the centre was something of an old friend. 

“There he is!” Alex grinned, gazing up at the twisted bodies of Giambologna’s masterpiece, looking almost haunting under the spotlights with no other light around, violence frozen into beauty, “No wonder the king passed it on to that Duke, you’d have to be gay to appreciate something this ostentatious.” 

“That’s priceless artwork you’re talking about,” Henry pointed out, though he was smiling, abandoning his boyfriend’s hand completely and just sliding his arm around his shoulders. 

Alex leaned closer in, enjoying the contact and the warm smell of him, “Priceless artwork with two buff dude’s asses on full display. Another point towards it’s obvious gayness.”

“You should be an art historian,” Henry snorted, pressing a kiss to the side of his head, just at the top of his jaw, “With a very specific focus.”

“Maybe I should. I could just keep going to school, doing degree after degree until I’m the most qualified person who ever lived who doesn’t actually have a job.” 

Henry shook his head gently, deliberately, “No. The world needs you out there. Doing things, making things better the way you do.”

Sometimes Alex had to stop and just look at Henry, really look at him. Just so the voice that still lived somewhere inside him, the one that whispered to him and said he wasn’t good enough and he wasn’t worthy of everything he had, just so that voice could see the look of perfect sincerity on Henry’s face and know it was wrong. 

“Fine. You can write the endless essays on the best asses in Renaissance art,” Alex murmured, aware that he was blushing slightly. 

Henry smiled, hair looking like gold in the dimness, “Maybe...listen, I...I really, really love you. I just need you to know that.”

Alex frowned a little though his smile didn’t fade, “That’s twice now you’ve said that unprompted. What do you want?” 

Henry looked a little abashed, like he really thought he’d been subtle, “Okay, fine, I do have something I want to ask you for.”

“Well spit it out,” Alex gave his usual cocky, lopsided grin, though there was now a genuine seed of worry in his chest, like something unseen was rushing at him, “You know I deal exclusively in blowjobs so we’ll see if we can come to an agreement about how many this favour of yours is worth.” 

“Lord,” Henry turned his eyes upwards for a moment, looking exasperated, desperate and hopeful all at once, the expression of a man about to take a step forward into thin air, “Just…”

He pulled away suddenly and, for a moment, the seed of worry in Alex’s chest turned into a full blown panic...until Henry then sank to one knee and produced something from his pocket, something that caught what little light there was around them and glinted. 

“I want you to spend the rest of your life with me,” he said, voice soft and sweet and sincere. 

Alex froze in place, unable to stop his jaw dropping even though he knew he’d look ridiculous, “You...you’re proposing to me?”

Henry ran an anxious hand through his hair, sending it out of place, “Um...yes.”

“And...and the last thing I said before you did was a joke about you blowing me…” Alex said hoarsely. 

Relief washed over Henry’s face and he smiled, “Rather appropriate for us, don’t you think?”

Before he could say anything more idiotic than he’d already managed, Alex threw himself down and caught that ridiculously perfect mouth in a messy kiss, one that nearly sent them both careening back onto the white tiled floor. Fortunately Henry shot one arm out behind him to catch them and managed to keep his grip on the ring. 

“Is that a yes?” he murmured weakly, once their lips drew away for air. 

“Yes,” Alex was crying like a baby, getting salt water on his jumper and Henry’s perfect collared shirt and he didn’t care, “It’s, like, a million yeses. I’m going to be a fucking prince!” 

“Prince consort,” Henry corrected gently, laughing, his own eyes rather damp, “More importantly,  _ my  _ prince consort.” 

“Yours,” just that simple word took Alex’s breath away and he kissed him again, unable to bear another moment without Henry’s lips on his own. 

Somewhere in the middle of the crying and the kissing, the ring found its way onto Alex’s finger. Newly made and perfectly sized- just so they could have something that was theirs alone- it shone silver under the museum spotlights, as precious to Alex as any ancient statue or priceless painting. 

There was so much Alex wanted to tell his younger self, standing where they knelt in a tangle, five years in the past, his heart heavy with doubts and fears and new discoveries about himself. He wanted to tell him everything would be okay. He wanted to tell him he was braver and kinder and more wonderful than he could ever know. He wanted to tell him that love was real and the future was bright. 

But maybe he wouldn’t tell him that one day he’d marry a prince. Some things were better left as surprises. 

**Author's Note:**

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